It’s always good to start from the beginning. With the two classes last week, students in one did just that, while the other was geared for beyond beginners. Interestingly, the three instructors for these classes started at the beginning and have gone well beyond here at Sievers. In the Quilting 101: Boot Camp, co-teachers Ellen Graf and Jackie Barry started students off with the basics of how to choose fabrics, accurately measure and safely cut fabric and sew patchwork blocks while establishing good techniques. Learning four different blocks and combining them, students created a wall hanging or table topper. Speaking of starting with the basics, Ellen came to Sievers for a Basic Spinning class in 1983, returning later for beginner-level […]
Wonderful and better
It was a wonderful week of Rigid Heddle Weaving with Deb Jones and the only thing that could have made the week better was to have an Open Quilt Studio at the same time…so we did! Some of the weavers were beginners and some had previous rigid heddle experience, so there were intermediate-level techniques and project ideas, including weft-faced weaves. Beginners started with scarves, then made a sampler, then had time for at least one more project. The instructor, Deb Jones, first came to Sievers as a student in Franie Philps’ Intermediate Spinning class in 1991. She continued to take spinning-related classes with Deb Menz as well as weaving, marbling, papermaking, feltmaking and coiled basketry. In 1999, less than a […]
Washington Island fiber happenings
These snowy, windy and cold days make for some of the best times to gather and knit, quilt or sew. We know of many people who are tucked into their own Washington Island homes, weaving, spinning or stitching, too. Mondays and Tuesdays find several Island residents meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church, sharing their gift of handwork with others, like a warm shawl or a quilt to comfort those who are experiencing a loss or illness. Handmade hats, mittens and scarves might be draped on December’s “Giving Tree”, where items are collected and sent to youth in need. The Trinity quilters, besides making comfort and charity quilts distributed both on the Island and globally, create and present a quilt to each […]
Give them a hand…
…for all the knitting and quilting and learning that took place in both Sandy De Master and Mary Germain’s Baltic Knitting Extravaganza and Ellen Graf’s Balance in Quilt Design classes! From the smallest Latvian mini-mittens to a full-size quilt, there were new and renewed projects in both studios. Following traditional designs or adapting and creating new ones were options in both classes. Both were equally wonderful! Studio visit times allow everyone to share and show the work of their hands, demonstrating a quote often associated with Walter Schutz, “Happiness is in your hands…and it keeps you young!” From the Reader’s Digest article Walter found that quote in, the last sentence reads, “We need the sense of self-confidence, self-respect, that comes […]
Stories
Each hand crafted piece has a story and the pieces made in last week’s Navajo Rug Weaving class and Open Quilt Studio all have their own stories. The reason for the choice of colors and design, who it may be given to and why, what it will remind the maker of each time they see it or what was happening around them during the process are all parts of the story. We have a story for you, too. Once upon a time, a group of people met at Sievers School for a Navajo Rug Weaving class with Betty Glynn Carlson. They started by warping the Navajo looms and choosing colors and designs that were to be the words of the […]
Covers
You can’t judge a book by its cover, so they say. But have they seen the books and covers made in the Miniature Wooden Books class with Daniel Essig? Using mica for a cover, or wood that has been sanded, carved and painted with milk paint, these 2″ – 3″ tiny treasurers were then showcased by creating small special displays, some of them including 100 year-old cedar shingles from an Island house. A visit from the quilt class gave a chance for the book-making students to share their pieces, cover-to-cover. If you’re under the covers, you might be under a quilt, and who wouldn’t want to be under one of these special and vibrant ones? In Ellen Graf’s Drafting in Quilt Design class, excellent technique is taught along with skills of […]
Patterns, Part Two
More and more patterns! In both Ellen Graf’s Quilt Design class and in Fair Isle Design with Janine Bajus (assisted by knitting “angels” Sandy De Master and Mary Germain), we have been treated to another week of beautiful patterns. Whether inspired by colors, shapes or nature, the quilts and knit swatches all ended up as our favorites. See for yourself… The confidence to go forward with your own design was an important part of each class. Using inspirational photos or pictures and 200+ colors of Shetland yarn, the process and joy of developing your own Fair Isle design was the focus of the three-day class with Janine Bajus. We all need reminders to foster our innate creativity and fully appreciate the world […]
Here we are, at 37!
It doesn’t matter your age, the first day of school feels special. Here we are, Sievers School, at 37, excited to greet new and returning students and experiencing it again as fresh as ever. The same newness is around us in the apple and crabapple blossoms, lilacs and forget-me-not now at their peak. For a long time now, we’ve been waiting to have this space transformed… …by our first group of nine quilters, into a studio filled with color and creativity! Welcome to the 2015 season of classes at Sievers School of Fiber Arts!
